15 April 2016 What is your educational background? I am a political scientist by training. My first degree was in political science with history at the University of Ghana, followed by a Masters, where I focused on human rights institutions, looking at Ghana’s Commission on Human Righ

Anna Webster 13 April 2016 So the ESID team are back in Manchester following a great week in Ghana. It was a hot and steamy 30 degrees in the vibrant city of Accra and during a brief power cut we realised how thankful we were for the AC! Debate and discussion on t

11 January 2016 ESID’s Abdul Gafaru Abdulai and Sam Hickey have just published their article on Ghana’s political settlement in The Journal of African Affairs. Here is a a summary of their findings: Initial hopes that democratisation would improve prospect

7 December 2015 What is your background and how did you become involved in ESID? I did a degree in Political Science at the University of Ghana followed by a Masters in Public Administration in Norway. I did my PHD at York University , UK, with Adrian Leftwich and it was there that I

25 November 2015 By Josephine Ahikire and Amon Mwiine In the current discourse on women and policymaking, there seems to be waning optimism, especially around an apparent paradox: on the one hand, women have made inroads into important political and policymaking spaces, whereas on

30 September 2015 ESID Researcher Lant Pritchett has written for The Guardian on the need for research into rapidly improving the quality of schooling if the world is going to meet the demands of the global education goal. If you want to find a child who lacks education today, the pla

8 September 2015 Researchers working on ESID’s education project presented their comparative findings at the Development Studies Association meeting taking place in Bath this week. Using primary research from Bangladesh, Rwanda, Ghana and Uganda, the team found that access to ed

28 May 2015 By David Hulme. [Reposted from Development at Manchester] Education is still considered a key strategy for reducing poverty by the poor. Universal primary education was included as a Millennium Development Goal, and it looks as though the new Sustainable Development Goals

06 March 2015 By Sophie King Social accountability has become an important ‘buzzword’ among development actors seeking to understand the forms of state-society relations that may be supportive of better public services. Malena and McNeil (2010: 1) define it as: ‘the broad range of act

15 January 2015 [5 December 2014 original post]. By Niaz Asadullah and Antonio Savoia. Bangladesh’s economy has recorded remarkable economic performance in the new millennium, though its per capita income has remained low. Even more spectacular has been the steady improvement in its l